Accidentally on Purpose
by Elise May
Summary: "Why are you so bothered?" he asks and it's not as if she hasn't been asking herself the same question for almost a week now. It shouldn't matter to her where he's lived or how he's lived or who he's lived with. Who is he to her? Her business partner, she'll grant him that for the time being, but beyond that? He's nobody.


_Hello! I was so stupid to think that Nick's return wouldn't get me back on my Carla and Nick bullshit. I'd just like to thank everybody who has been so supportive and patient with me during my hiatus, particularly Kirst. It means more to me than you'll ever know. I really hope this isn't bad! I'm a bit out of practise, but this scene was just begging to be continued._

* * *

 **Accidentally on Purpose**

* * *

 _"Well, no. No. That's ridiculous. I'm getting a divorce. I'm giving Elsa everything, okay? Factory's all I've got. I'm not giving that up."_

 _"I don't know what to tell you. You know, 'cos either you sell me your share, or all your secrets come tumbling out of my gob and you've got two very angry women on your hands. I'll let you sleep on it, though. Nicky."_

* * *

She saunters past him, bold as brass. She's impressed with herself, he can tell. Whether this – the blackmail – is something she has had planned all along, just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself, he cannot tell. He doesn't like to think of her capitalising on the situation. Capitalising on Elsa's pain. His mind is spinning with the many number of directions their conversation may have turned down. He feels powerless. He supposes he _is_ powerless.

Nick is following Carla towards the exit before his brain can think better of it. He thinks: _fuck it_. The damage has already been done. There's not much else he can say that can make this worse.

"Carla!" he calls after her and she hates the way her name sounds in his mouth. It sounds the same as it always has and it makes things so much more difficult than they need to be, the familiarity of it something Carla can't quite handle. The twinge in her chest subsides by the time he grabs her arm. She stares at where he is touching her.

He hasn't touched her in two and a half years.

"You can't do this." His grip on her is slack. His voice is soft.

 _This is so difficult._

She grins at him, mockingly. "Yes, I can."

He lets go of her and she releases a shaky breath she hadn't even realised she'd been holding. She thinks she's free to go, but Nick moves closer to the main doors and makes a point of blocking the exit. She laughs at him, openly; her eyes sparkle with mirth. If his actions are intended to threaten her, he might want to have a rethink.

"You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do," she tells him. She's so smug about it and he wishes there was a way to make her stop looking at him with such discontent. She has got him exactly where she wants him and he knows it. Nick feels enraged. "Not now."

His eyes widen. "Like I've ever," he says under his breath.

She smiles to herself with a sense of knowingness before she puts the smirk back on her face. Carla tilts her head. He can see her brain ticking away; she's weighing up her options.

"Move out of the way, Nick."

But there is no urgency in her words. She doesn't believe he's going to move. (He isn't.) It's almost as if she doesn't want him to. She doesn't want to go home. Not that it is home. It's Roy's and it's homely and she truly hasn't felt as welcome in another person's space since… _Nick_. But she knows she's only biding time there. Carla lets out a loud sigh. She's frustrated with herself. Is sparring with Nick really the most exciting thing that has happened to her in months? Is that the reason why her heart is thumping, reminding her that she's alive, that this is what it's like to feel something? She's not sure the burning sensation she has felt in her chest every second she has spent in his company since Friday is something she's prepared to give up. Not yet.

"No," he says. His voice is calm and collected, but he is anything but. Carla raises her eyebrows at his audacity. "Listen to me—"

But she cuts him off.

"No, Nick. No." She raises a finger to silence him. It works. "I have spent the majority of my afternoon listening to your wife, so no. I am not prepared to listen to you. I like her, you know. She's nice. Your type." That hits him exactly where she intends it to. Nick bows his head. "Bit clingy, but..." She shrugs and he opens his mouth to defend Elsa. He wants to defend his wife like he knows he should, like he knows he would if he was a proper husband, but what Carla says next intrigues him too much for him to continue. "We've all been there, haven't we?" _When it comes to you._ He is staring at her. "I feel sorry for her in all honesty, Nick. This entire situation is a mess."

He laughs, but none of this is funny to him.

"Do you not think I know that?"

She's incredulous all of a sudden. Her hands are on her hips and her eyes are almost alight with rage. Who is this man? He is the one to blame here. He knows he's to blame and yet he is still standing in front of her, awarding himself pity points, like he is deserving of anyone's sympathy, let alone Carla's. She feels _nothing_ for him. All she wants to do is shake him out of this, but she has to remember that she no longer has that place in his life. She doesn't have a place in his life.

"If that's the case, then why would I let you drag me into it?" she asks him.

He is as adamant as he has always been. "My personal life has nothing to do with the business."

She explodes with rage and he doesn't know where to look. She gets right up in his face. "But it does! Can't you see? Your personal life is what made you miss our meeting with Neilson and Neilson's this afternoon, or had you forgotten that?" She pauses for effect. " _Again_."

It's Nick's turn to raise his voice. "Well, you're certainly never gonna let me forget, are you?"

And they stand there, in the doorway of the factory they now own together, staring at each other. Not moving. Not even breathing; Carla makes a promise to herself that she won't. She's not prepared to give herself away like that. He doesn't bother her, so she sure as hell isn't going to make him think otherwise. Nick swallows the lump in his throat. He knows that it has nothing to do with the curveball she's thrown him, the threats she has made to his life as he knows it, and everything to do with how close the proximity between them has become.

Nick whispers, "What I don't understand is why you're so interested."

She frowns, her confusion evident. His eyes never leave her's.

"Me?" She's acting dumb, but Nick gives her the benefit of the doubt. He nods slowly. Carla continues. "In what?" Because, for a second, she forgets what they're arguing about, and remembers what their source of conflict should be. Her chest aches.

"My life." Her expression changes. She looks as if she is about to speak, but he stops her with his words. "Come on, you've taken this far enough. What I've gotten up to in Nottingham, it shouldn't mean anything to you."

More anger builds up inside her, but she keeps a firm lid on it this time. Her voice is low.

"It doesn't."

It's not clear who she's trying to convince more.

"Then why are you so bothered?" he asks and it's not as if she hasn't been asking herself the same question for almost a week now. It shouldn't matter to her where he's lived or how he's lived or who he's lived with. Who is he to her? Her business partner, she'll grant him that for the time being, but beyond that? He's nobody. (An ex. Her last ex. The one she still isn't able to refer to as _the ex_.) But it does matter. It matters so much that she has lost sleep over it. She has spent nights up until the early hours searching, thinking, making up scenarios in her head, explanations for the lies he is stupid enough to think she believes. Does he forget who he's talking to? She knew there was a woman involved and, whilst she may be able to feel smug for being so right, Carla hadn't banked on meeting Elsa. She wasn't to know how their conversation would make her feel, the woman's words hitting far closer to home than Carla ever thought possible.

She's hurt and she's angry. She is owed these explanations from him because how _dare_ he move on like she was nothing.

But she knows she wasn't nothing.

She can tell by the way Nick is still standing in front of her. This isn't about the business. It is so much more personal than that. It always will be between the two of them.

"Because of Underworld!" she tells him. "Alright? Because this is my business and I don't want you to be a part of it. You're a flamin' liability."

It isn't a lie, but it isn't exactly the truth.

(What is the truth?)

Her head is a mess.

"This is about Peter, isn't it?" Nick has to spit the words out of his mouth. He is trying desperately to understand the way her brain has been rewired, sickness in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Peter and Carla and the factory and _what did Johnny say?_

Carla can't believe what she's hearing. She can't believe what he's confronting her with – and without fair warning. This is low, even for him. Days have passed in which she hasn't allowed herself to think about Peter. It stings too much. She feels stupid and small and meaningless. Why should she pay him a second thought when he certainly hadn't been prepared to pay her the same curtesy last week? If it wasn't for him, none of this would be happening. She wouldn't care about Nick and his life and his wife.

Would she?

Her voice shakes. "I'm sorry?"

Nick's explanation is logical, spoken with a sense of calmness that shouldn't really belong to him. "You want my shares. You want my shares, so you can sell them back to Peter, and you can live happily ever after in this ridiculous fantasy world you've created in your head where you pretend that he didn't do the dirty with the babysitter, and he isn't the reason why you don't know how to love like a normal person."

To say he hits a nerve would be an understatement. He hits multiple nerves in multiple ways and she feels like her heart is going to fall out of her chest. Instinctively, she pushes against him. She hits his chest with both of her hands and it's firmer than she remembers and he lets her. She stands up straighter, makes herself look taller.

 _I can do normal._

"How dare you!" He holds her gaze. Nick knows he's hurt her. It was his intention, after all, but he's left wondering why he doesn't feel so good about it. Her eyes shine. "I thought I knew. I really did, but obviously I thought wrong." _You didn't._ But Nick stays silent. What Carla says next is spiteful and bitter. It is said from a place of heartbreak she hasn't yet vacated and she is beginning to wonder whether she ever will. "Do you follow a template, Nick? Is that what you do? What is it? Do you find a woman, make her fall hopelessly in love with you, get married, and then bin her off because... _oh, Leanne_?"

He doesn't know what to say. She's pushing his buttons like he has just pushed hers, and he's livid. Whatever Elsa has said to Carla has so obviously bothered her that it hurts him. It shouldn't, but it hurts him to think that Carla has compared their relationships and found so many superficial similarities between them that she is now doing everything in her power to remove him from her life.

"Are you not gonna say anything?" she asks. Nick is looking at the floor, almost as if in shame. Carla dips her head to meet his eyes, but he moves before she can, so she cups his jaw to turn his head, to make him face her again. She regrets it in an instant. Her heartbeat is in her ears and they freeze in position.

She doesn't let go.

He doesn't want her to.

"Leanne isn't the reason our marriage fell apart," he whispers. Finally, there is an acknowledgement of what they have both been too cowardly to confront.

Carla feels tongue tied, but she is still quick to respond. "Maybe she would've been. Eventually," she lies, because he knows as well as she does that Leanne would not have gotten in the way of _this_ , of them. She can see it in his eyes. "You'll never get over her."

"No." She can't tell what he's responding to and it makes her feel faint. "She wouldn't have," he clarifies and relief spreads throughout her entire body. She feels lighter all of a sudden. This afternoon, she felt so heavy. Elsa had put thoughts in her head, reigniting Carla's deeply buried feeling that she was just a stopgap, a second choice, somebody easy he could get with because he couldn't handle being on his own.

Reluctantly, Carla drops her hand – but she doesn't take a step back. He may be saying exactly what she wants to hear, but she isn't going to give him the satisfaction of making that clear to him.

"Not like little old me," she continues because he is so obviously over her and she can't understand why it hurts her so much. "Didn't give me a second thought, did you, Tilsley?"

Tilsley. He never thought he'd hear her say that again. It all comes rushing back to him; how it feels to be teased by her with genuine affection rather than distain. Nick hadn't been lying when he said he's missed this. He's missed _her_. Everything about her; the good and the bad.

He wishes she'd touch him again.

"That's not true," he says.

"It is." She has given up trying to hide her hurt. "Now move."

Nick doesn't move. At least, not in the way she is expecting him to. Instead, he moves closer to her, and she mirrors his action. They meet in the middle and she wishes there was at least some kind of hesitation, because he's married and she really does hate him (for it), but their lips meet and she forgets why she is so angry. She kisses him and he kisses her; it's messy and their mouths are warm and open.

She wraps her arms around his shoulders, his fingers in her hair. He is pushed up against the double doors with an almighty crash. The noise should've parted them. It should've brought them to their senses, but they are completely and utterly senseless. This is what is going to keep happening if he continues to wear waistcoats like that which her fingers are skimming the collar of in her space. In her factory.

Nick had almost forgotten just how right she feels against him. The inevitability of this moment is something that they had both overlooked until now. Why he'd been unable to kiss Leanne, but is willing and able to let Carla do _this_ to him, he cannot explain. Maybe it's because she knows him. She really knows him. Carla is the only person in his life who knows everything about him right now and its the knowledge that she has which allows him to kiss her harder. She knows, and yet her mouth is still moving against his. She matches each of his kisses with one of her own and he never wants her to stop.

Carla feels light and heavy at the same time. Her heart is pounding and her head is spinning and she's missed this feeling so much that she can't breathe, even when he leans his head against hers to take a breath of his own. There have been sexual encounters with strangers, with friends, and even men who are borderline family; and she has felt nothing. For months, for _years_ , she has been searching for something, _anything_ , with the ability to make her feel as much as she is feeling in this moment. Everything has failed in comparison to the real thing, but the real thing didn't come back here for her. He didn't buy the factory to be around her. The real thing has lied to her, and now he's cheated ( _I'm getting a divorce_ ) on his wife, but there is no way she is letting him put that on her. He has found what she has been searching for in two blondes to whom he has given three rings in total and she absolutely despises him for how insignificant that makes her feel.

She might not recognise the person he has become, but his hands on her waist and the intensity with which he meets her eyes is all him, and she wants him all over.

They kiss again, softer this time, before he nudges her off him. She takes a step back, allowing him to take in her red lips and pink cheeks and wide eyes. She's beautiful and she's angry and he'd do anything to get a proper smile out of her. He has yet to see it since his return and it makes him ache for a time that was simpler, for a time when he was happier. His happiest.

At first, she thinks she's imagined the, "Night, Carla," he whispers to her, his eyes far off into the distance. The fight has left his body and he slowly moves out of her way. They are breathing hard, but their ragged breath seems to be the only indication that anything is amiss. His game face is back on. She adjusts her mask.

Begging her to let him keep his share of the factory is now the last thing Nick feels like doing.

Something akin to a laugh of disbelief escapes Carla as she brushes her body accidentally on purpose against his to open the factory door. Wind blows into the building and dances with her already messy hair. The street lights illuminate her face and Nick finds that he cannot look away.

"Nick," she says in parting. Carla steps outside.


End file.
